Stephen A. Smith excoriates Cari Champion: ‘You should be ashamed of yourself’

It’s a day that ends in “y” so Stephen A. Smith is feuding with someone. This time he has spun the wheel of sports, politics, and media and landed on former First Take colleague Cari Champion.

It all started thanks to another feud of Smith’s, with former ESPN star Michelle Beadle. The bad feelings that Beadle has for Smith go back years and were heightened again earlier this year when Beadle and SiriusXM co-host Cody Decker were unceremoniously dumped for a new SAS daily radio show. Beadle again hammered Smith over his new controversial solitaire social media ads, making money over his slacking on the job during the NBA Finals.

On his Straight Shooter podcast on Monday, Stephen A. Smith finally answered Michelle Beadle by name, claiming that he did not respond to her directly for 11 years because he has no relationship with her. However, the same was not true for someone with whom he worked closely for several years — former First Take moderator Cari Champion.

Smith played an Instagram video from Champion in which she brought up perhaps the lowest point of his professional career, his suspension from ESPN over comments made in the wake of the Ray Rice domestic violence incident. Smith was suspended for a week after saying that women should be careful not to “provoke wrong actions,” but he remains defiant over the discipline to this day.

Champion made note in her video of herself getting in trouble based off Smith’s comments about women. She then called out Smith to keep the “same energy” and “same smoke” for Michelle Beadle that he does for women like Jasmine Crockett, Michelle Obama, herself, and Jemele Hill, who are all Black.

For what it’s worth, on the same podcast, Smith also continued an ongoing feud with Crockett after previously apologizing for criticizing her for what he called “street verbiage.” He played a clip of Rep. Crockett calling out Smith for his comments about black women and then defended himself from her denunciation.

But Smith’s most intense response was for his former co-worker in Cari Champion. After devoting a few minutes to Beadle and mostly playing the “I don’t know her” card, he then went in on Champion in much greater detail.

A message to Cari Champion pic.twitter.com/KXPrJmcptJ

— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) November 11, 2025

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Smith stated bluntly towards Champion. “You just said Cari, you called me, you root for me. Why would you root for somebody that called you out and Jemele Hill, who’s your good friend? Because it’s never happened. Never. I’ve shown you nothing but love. What are you talking about?”

In typical Stephen A. Smith form, he couldn’t enter a rant against a sports media colleague without throwing his weight around about how much power and influence he has at ESPN and being the kingmaker of First Take. In addition to saying that he was the one largely responsible for hiring Cari Champion, he also made note of her Tennis Channel roots, seemingly wanting to take credit for plucking her from obscurity for the First Take spotlight.

“You were hired at First Take in large part because of me. You stayed as long as you stayed and had the support of the people who supported you because of me. Do I need to get bosses to confirm that I’m telling the truth? You know I can. When we see the diverse people that come on First Take, black people, women, the list goes on and on. Who did that? That wasn’t happening when Skip was there. That was me. What are you talking about?”

Throughout the six-minute rant, it was clear that Stephen A. Smith felt personally betrayed by the comments of Cari Champion. He talked about their relationship, both in personal and professional environments, and just how out of bounds he believed her video to be. He was also defiant in stating his continual support for both Champion and Hill.

“What are you talking about? When? Can somebody here please find something on the record where I’m on the air or something talking about Jemele Hill and Cari Champion,” Smith pleaded. “You were at the Tennis Channel and I brought you over to ESPN.”

There isn’t an example that we could find of Smith calling out Champion or being critical of her or her work. However, ironically, in 2018, Stephen A. Smith said that Jemele Hill should stay in her lane when she was involved in a dispute with Donald Trump.

Yes, the President is going to say what he has to say. Yes, he’s going to venture in our lane to the point where it’s apropos for us to respond. But we also need to be cognizant of the fact it’s incumbent upon us to leave it there and not extend beyond that point. We’re a sports network. You become successful. You sustain a level of success by giving people what they expect. By, figuratively speaking, ‘playing the hits.’ Not deviating too far away from what people turn on the channel and tune in for to hear. As long as we remember those kinds of things, then it’s going to lend itself to us being successful as opposed to us losing our bearings because we get caught up in our emotions, and we do things that ultimately sacrifice the brand and ourselves just to react to something for 15 seconds or 15 minutes. We have to be smarter than that — even if the President doesn’t appear that way sometimes.

Seven years later, ESPN star Stephen A. Smith is currently flirting with the idea of running for President of the United States while also hosting his own political talk show on SiriusXM radio and being a frequent political commentator on cable news. He also went on First Take and said that Donald Trump was coming for the NBA in the wake of last month’s gambling scandal. My how things have changed.

Smith then questioned Champion’s motives in calling her out and aired personal information about her career publicly.

“Are you sick of the attention you’re not getting because you’re not on ESPN anymore? I didn’t ask you to leave. It was your choice. It’s hard, ladies and gentlemen, to sit here and listen to stuff like this from people who are supposed to be your friends,” Smith said. “When you had a meeting wanting to come back to ESPN, who set up the meeting? Who did you call? What are you talking about? Why would you do that?”

Those remarks are reminiscent to what Smith did earlier this year when he cryptically addressed the sudden departure of another First Take moderator in Molly Qerim earlier this year. That tactic, especially towards another female colleague in the midst of making it clear how much industry power he has, may be cause of a separate inquiry in and of itself.

Stephen A. Smith has aimed various rants at an uncountable number of people over the years. But it’s clear the comments from Cari Champion affected him in a way in which few have before.